Microsoft Power BI & Fabric Ecosystem

Originally planned as a small add-on to the BARC Ecosystem Maps, the Blog Portfolio has become a very popular part of the Power BI Ecosystem.

As we are often asked about the concept and how the positions are calculated, we would like to give you a little background in this article.

First and foremost, the idea behind the blog portfolio is to inspire people to search for great content in the ecosystem and to engage with the people who create that content. The axes and visualisations on the portfolio are designed to help people find the right channels for their needs and interests, NOT to rate the blogs.

We particularly recommend looking at the niches: Smaller blogs often focus on specific topics or specialise in more in-depth articles. That’s why we’ve started adding specialisations to the portfolio and recommendations to our “what’s new articles”..

What is required to get into the Blog Portfolio?

First and foremost, contact us: write to ecosystems@barc.com or answer to one of the posts on Linkedin (see Stefan Sexl’s Linkedin profile). We’ll check the proposal and include it in one of the regular updates.

The only criteria is a minimum of 5 pieces of content in the last 12 months on the specific topic with general value to the community. For example, we add company blogs if they meet this criteria and blog about topics of general interest (instead of just promotion their own products and services).

For blogs with a lot of long-running articles, such as great training material, we sometimes make an exception and add them even if the articles are old but still of great value to the community.

What are the elements of the Blog Portfolio and how are they calculated?

• • The x-axis represents a spectrum of blog orientations, with blogs catering to technical users positioned on the
    right, and those more business-oriented placed on the left. This positioning is determined by BARC analysts and the Ecosystem team and reflects their subjective analysis. We acknowledge the subjective nature of these placements and are open to re-evaluating a blog’s position upon request from the blogger.

• • The y-axis quantifies the popularity of different platforms. For YouTube channels, popularity is primarily gauged by subscriber count. In cases where this number is not publicly displayed, we estimate it based on video views. For traditional blog sites, we utilize a specific tool (https://ahrefs.com/de/backlink-checker) to assess the domain rating and count backlinks. We then merge these two key performance indicators (KPIs) using a specific formula. For blogs hosted on larger platforms like medium.com, our focus is primarily on backlinks. For corporate sites, we estimate the significance of their blog content. Ultimately, we have a formula that amalgamates YouTube and traditional blog popularity metrics. For sites that combine both elements, we use the higher of the two values. While this method might sound complex, community feedback indicates it yields realistic results. However, it’s important to note that this is not an exact science😉

• • The size of each bubble corresponds to the frequency of updates over the past 12 months, focusing exclusively on articles relevant to the specific portfolio. As a result, a blog covering various BI ecosystems might display varying bubble sizes across different portfolios. This is especially notable in cases where a blog intersects with multiple subjects. For instance, in the Microsoft ecosystem, there are blogs that discuss broader Fabric and Excel topics as well as those specifically focusing on Power BI. These blogs may therefore appear with different bubble sizes in separate portfolios, reflecting their content’s relevance and update frequency in each context.

Additional elements

As the number of blogs grows for all the portfolios, we have started to add additional elements. These are slightly different for each portfolio, we are in the process of learning and plan to bring the concepts closer together step by step:

• • Languages are represented by different bubble colours or flags. As the main languages of the BARC team are English and German, we welcome the help of the community, especially for other languages.

• • The specialisations are different for each ecosystem – the concept is still evolving and will add additional information for topics such as reporting for each blog.

Note to the content providers

We review all blogs on a regular basis, but not on every single update. So if you think your blog’s position should change, or you have doubled the number of subscribers in the last 3 months, feel free to send us a quick email and we will take a look. In general, we like to keep in touch with you!

A big thank you to the many contributors of the Blog Portfolios!